Before he became an overnight sensation in his sixth pro season for the Dallas Texans, Len Dawson languished as a backup in Pittsburgh and Cleveland, throwing 45 passes in five years. After the 1962 season, Dawson convinced Browns coach Paul Brown to release him. Brown obliged, and when another coach expressed an interest in Dawson, Brown told him, “As a fellow coach, I want you to know that I don’t think Lenny can play football in the National Football League.”
The good news was the coach in question, Hank Stram of the Texans, plied his trade in the American Football League. In new surroundings, Dawson blossomed into a Hall of Fame passer, midwifed the birth of what remains one of pro football’s most rabidly followed teams and, for good measure, stuck it to the NFL when the Kansas City Chiefs won Super Bowl IV over the Minnesota Vikings, the last game played by an AFL team before the merger.
And then Dawson, who died at age 87 shortly after entering hospice care, his family announced Wednesday, endeared himself to another generation of fans as the longtime co-host of HBO’s groundbreaking Inside the NFL, which served as the template for shows such as NFL Primetime and NFL GameDay.
